Beach lifestyle, exercise keep mind, body in balance

LeBeau tried to leave San Diego. The La Jolla High grad went to Brown, the Ivy League university in Rhode Island. After graduation, he worked a year in Boston before going off to New Zealand. He never intended to return, but the magnetic pull was too strong. When he came home for a visit, he couldn’t leave.

“I thought I was coming back just for a summer and then ... here I am,” he says, smiling.

Perhaps it was inevitable. LeBeau grew up surfing, lifeguarding and playing water polo in La Jolla, where he was raised by parents who met at a San Diego triathlon. He grew up in an active family with three athletic sisters and jokes that the food co-op in Ocean Beach was his daycare center because his parents spent so much time there. This is home.

Today he and his wife, Claire, live in the Bird Rock area, just blocks from the beach and the apartment where he was born. It’s just a short walk to the office where he works as co-founder (with his dad, Rick) of the family business, Rickaroons (organic, vegan coconut energy bars). Though his focus is now on expanding the 5-year-old business, he still surfs, plays water polo and does some lifeguarding during the summer.

He works in a windowless office but breaks up long days with sunshine escapes.

“I come back feeling more refreshed and more productive and ready to get back at it,” he says. He’s found he functions better after he’s worked out or is active outside. It alleviates stress, and he’s happier and sharper mentally. Living where he does allows him to have the lifestyle he’s always loved.

“If you’re going to pay to live in coastal San Diego, you may as well take advantage of everything it has to offer,” he says. “There’s a reason why people move here from all over the country and the world.”

He played water polo and baseball at La Jolla High and in 2004 as a senior was the Union-Tribune’s All-Academic team captain for water polo and a second-team U-T all-section selection. At Brown, he was team captain. He still plays adult water polo on a team of mostly former college players (and until this year was an assistant coach at La Jolla High).

He says his parents, Rick LeBeau and Maryfaith Schweighardt, provided early role models for being active, healthy adults.

“My mom’s still running, five times a week,” he says. “My dad has his own workout regimen at the pool or running at the beach. It’s a pretty active group. It’s the only way I know.”

Bill Wechter

Grant LeBeau runs in a neighborhood near his La Jolla residence with a view of Pacific Beach behind him.

Grant LeBeau runs in a neighborhood near his La Jolla residence with a view of Pacific Beach behind him. (Bill Wechter)

Exercise regimen

On a good week, he’ll be in the ocean several mornings to surf. He also has a home gym for workouts and several times a week will run, including hill sprints and the route up Mount Soledad. There’s also water polo games and lifeguarding. In the summer, he’ll get workouts in on the beach with other lifeguards — running, swimming and paddling.

He maintains his fitness all year, both for his health and to be an effective lifeguard. “As I’ve gotten older, one thing I’ve realized is it’s so much easier to continue moving than it is to stop, get out of shape and then get back into shape,” he says.

Lifeguard experience

He began lifeguarding at 18. In past years, he’s worked 40-hour weeks and picked up shifts from March through October/November. Now he works a couple of days a week during peak season. He also helps with San Diego’s Junior Lifeguard program (which he went through himself), most recently as intern coordinator, helping participants transition to becoming lifeguards.

Diet

He calls himself a “refrigerator vegetarian,” meaning he eats a vegetarian diet at home but will eat meat when out or at the home of a friend. He enjoys reading about nutrition, tries to limit his intake of sugar and follows the example his mom set by eating seasonally and locally.

Rickaroons

Named after his dad, Rickaroons are energy bars that come in a variety of flavors. He says his dad is “the staunchest vegan you’ll ever meet” and jokes that the bars check every “SoCal box you can imagine” as organic, gluten-free, vegan, paleo and non-GMO and are locally made, family-owned and family-run. He works alongside his sisters Stevie and Tina.

Now that the company is trying to push its bars into more outlets — and his hours are growing — he says it’s harder but important to maintain balance in his life. “It’s like pushing a boulder up a hill, right?” he says. But exercise can fuel that cause by keeping the mind and body sharp. “The two are linked,” he says.